The most ineffective bit of French engineering since the Maginot Line,
the Renault Dauphine was originally to be named the Corvette, tres ironie.
It was, in fact, a rickety, paper-thin scandal of a car that, if you
stood beside it, you could actually hear rusting. Its most salient
feature was its slowness, a rate of acceleration you could measure with a
calendar. It took the drivers at Road and Track 32 seconds to
reach 60 mph, which would put the Dauphine at a severe disadvantage in
any drag race involving farm equipment. The fact that the ultra-cheap,
super-sketchy Dauphine sold over 2 million copies around the world is an
index of how desperately people wanted cars. Any cars.
No comments:
Post a Comment